


A Prison and an Open Hand

by whereismygarden



Series: Reflections universe [1]
Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Episode Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3515957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Handling unplanned pregnancies and circling a mysterious star. A rewrite of season 1 episode 13, "Faith."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Prison and an Open Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reflections](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3332774) by [Potboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potboy/pseuds/Potboy). 



                Evelyn woke up to the eternal blue-green dimness of FTL light, and switched the light in her quarters on before she went to wash her face. All the lights were a yellow-orange incandescent type, a few hues redder than everyone was used to, or the blue the Ancients tended to favor. If they couldn’t have sunlight, it would be nice to have a few familiar harsh fluorescent tube lights to make the ship a little more homelike. As it was, the science team and Becker and TJ were constantly leaning in to squint at things, or taking their own flashlights from Earth to inspect machinery and supplies.

                She was eternally tired these days, it seemed, as she tied her hair up and back and clipped the loose pieces in place. It would be nice if that was just the result of coups and kidnappings and attacks and low supplies, but she suspected otherwise. They’d been on Destiny for going on four months, and she’d bled once, a very little. The kind of bleeding that heralded the settling-in of a pregnancy, not the onset of very early menopause or a last gasp of her body as anemia claimed her menstrual cycle.

                The control interface room was occupied solely by Elly, who seemed unusually quiet.

                “They’re at the shuttle,” she said, pointing towards the shuttle bay with the damaged craft. Instead of the usual trio of Brody, Volker, and Park working on the shuttle, Evelyn saw Brody, Rush, and Park. The shuttle doors were closed, and Park was standing outside, watching a suited Brody wield an arc welder and something less immediately recognizable. Rush was leaning with one hand braced on the bulkhead, one hand pressed to her chest. A flicker of annoyance raced up inside Evelyn’s chest.

                “Hey,” she said to them, nodding back when Park gave her a brief, somewhat worried nod. He had foregone shaving this morning, or perhaps hadn’t gone to bed yet. It was hard to tell, what with everyone having a single set of clothes. Rush turned to look at her, an extremely obvious rust-red smear coming through the chest of her white t-shirt. “You look like hell, why are you walking around?”

                “Anna already told her,” Park said, shaking his head. “Please go back to bed, Dr. Rush. We’re fine here.” Rush waved a hand, straightening up.

                “I’m fine,” she snapped. “There’s too much work to do to be laying around in bed.” She glared at Young, dark eyes flaring up in challenge. “You look like hell too, Colonel, if we’re trading insults.” Evelyn forced down her annoyance. Rush had been furious when Evelyn ordered Brightman to remove the tracker in her chest, and their general goodwill after the alien attack had evaporated. She still looked like she had, well, had open-heart surgery less than two days ago.

                “Go see TJ,” Evelyn gritted out, and her stomach lurched horribly. The steady, water-like flow of FTL blinked out and resolved into black space. She put a hand on the side of the wall and forced back the impulse to throw up onto the floor in front of Park. A fine sweat had broken out on her brow.

                “What the fuck?” Rush was shoving past Park, already turning towards the control interface room. Evelyn’s radio crackled.

                “I’m seeing a star outside the shuttle.” Brody, as usual, didn’t sound perturbed.

                “That seems unlikely, there’s no star in our course currently.” Rush’s response, through the radio, wasn’t distinguishable as pained or annoyed, but was likely both. Evelyn headed in the direction of the control interface room, leaving Park and Brody to continue on the shuttle.

                Volker, Rush, and Elly were pacing around the consoles, Volker running her hands through her hair.

                “It’s just very strange,” she was saying. Elly was nodding, eyes wide, no doubt spinning through a series of science fiction references. Rush was bent over her screen, right hand drifting over to another filled with numbers.

                “I agree, Doctor Volker,” she said finally. Volker looked surprised at the admission, but she turned to Evelyn as she stepped inside.

                “This star has a planet,” Rush announced.

                “How many hours on the clock?”

                “None,” Elly cut in. “There’s no gate.”

                “Long-range sensors are showing good signs in terms of atmosphere,” Volker said slowly, a slight frown playing over her features. “Strange.”

                “There would be something wrong, to have no gate, correct?” Evelyn addressed the room.

                “That’s not what’s strange,” Elly said, unbraiding and rebraiding some of her hair.

                “This is a G-class star, much like the earth’s sun,” Rush said. She looked over at Volker.

                “It’s only 200 million years old,” she said, as though that were some kind of clarification. A headache was building on top of the nausea. Evelyn folded her arms. “There shouldn’t be any kind of habitable planet, there should be a mass of molten rock and dust and deadly atmosphere.”

                “Freaky,” Elly said lightly. “Verging on bizarre.”

                Evelyn looked at the astrophysicist, mathematician, and prodigy arrayed in front of her, all thoroughly mystified.

                “Then why did we drop out?”

                “This star is _in our way_. It’s like Destiny didn’t know it was going to be there, and had to—swerve.” Elly spread her hands. “We’re adjusting our course. We’re going to have to circle it.” Evelyn had heard enough.

                “Scott,” she said into her radio.

                “Colonel?”

                “Get Greer and TJ and get up to the control interface room.” She clipped the radio back to her belt. “You three, start plotting a shuttle course for that planet.” God, she really needed to throw up. She turned on her heel and stalked out, putting a hand over her nose, because the smell of blood from Rush’s bandages and Volker’s perfume was thick in her lungs.

                Greer, Scott, and TJ were all waiting when she returned, face wiped free of sweat and mouth rinsed.

                “You three and one of the civilian scientists are going down to the planet to bring back as much water and food as possible.”

                “Actually,” Volker cut in, looking excited. “If you can get there and back, you can make another trip down. Camp out while we slingshot around this star, collect supplies for us all.”

                “Go now, get back in—“ Evelyn looked over at Rush and Volker.

                “Three hours on planet,” Rush said.

                “Take Roberta Caine, she’s a biologist of some kind.”

~

                Destiny was significantly emptied, and Evelyn was left with little to do. There was no gate travel to arrange, no alien ships on their sensors, just the ever-present brilliance of the star on their starboard side. They had a small stash of the fruits that Greer had reportedly eaten without a second thought: they were kiwi-like and almost painfully sharp and sweet. She had given up her ration, because she was vomiting up half her meals these days.

                A reasonable person would get on the stones and confess to her husband that she was pregnant, but she had a horrible feeling that Emerson wouldn’t be her husband much longer, and it wasn’t his baby anyway. Wray and Elly spent a lot of time in the observation deck, enjoying the light, and she had heard Wray wistfully say that he wished he had joined the team on the planet, to feel the sunlight and air.

                She would have liked to do the same. With TJ gone, it was easy to go into the infirmary and take a portion of vitamins: folic acid and iron and calcium and vitamin C that certainly didn’t make up a significant portion of the paste that was most of their rations. The weight around her neck would lessen a little, perhaps, if she could take a breath of real air.

                Brody and Park’s progress on the shuttle was disappointingly slow: being able to turn left might be better than nothing, but what mattered was good enough and nothing less. At least they were repressurized now. Rush occasionally came by to look things over, as chief science officer, but she was absorbed in Destiny’s database and in the data from their errant star.

                It cast half the ship in brilliance, striking deep shadows across the rooms where its light entered. There was hardly any more heat onboard, and according to Elly, the UV shields were fully functional, but people came to sit in the light anyway.

                Maybe she should appreciate their break more, but TJ and Scott and Greer and a whole lot of the rest of the crew was down on a planet with a mysterious structure and the exhausting light of the star filtered in still redder than Earth’s sunlight. What she wanted, she thought, taking a moment to stretch her legs in a corridor, was to see a sunrise. To see the sun come up over the desert, blue and pink light spread over creosote bushes and sand. Something came strangling up her throat and she closed her eyes, turned into the wall, and gave in, just for a moment, to the fear wrapped inside her lungs.

                God, she was fucked. She was completely, utterly fucked, and she’d already ruined the life of the baby and it wasn’t even _born_ yet. Emerson was unthinkable distances away and ready to leave her and hearing she was pregnant would just bang the final nail into the coffin of her ruined marriage, which she had burned to the ground more or less single-handedly. She had ended things with TJ to save her marriage, and God, he was twenty six fucking years old and had been leaving the Air Force and didn’t deserve any of this. God.

                She had her face buried into the crook of her elbow and heard footsteps too late. She wiped at her eyes, forcing her breathing to settle down.

                “Ma’am?” Becker’s voice, sounding concerned. Evelyn turned, giving her eyes a last swipe with her thumb. The last thing she needed was to break down in front of her crew.

                “Airman?” she said. Becker’s face looked downright alarmed at the sight of her, and she shifted on her feet.

                “Colonel, are you okay?” she asked uncomfortably. “I was just passing by.” Evelyn forced her face into the calmest expression she could manage.

                “No need for you to worry,” she assured her--which, if she continued in this way, might prove to be a lie in the end. “Just having a moment.” She managed a small smile, which didn’t seem to reassure Becker, but she nodded anyway.

                “I’ve had a few of those,” she replied, offering an uncertain smile, and then pausing. “Colonel.” Evelyn nodded to her, and she continued on her way.

                She would start putting on weight soon, and the secret would be out. Before she showed, actually, because she needed to report it in to Homeworld Command, rather than have someone else notice. That would be absolute hell, reporting in to Jack O’Neill that she was pregnant, in the midst of a frontier situation more supply poor and isolated than the Atlantis expedition.

~

                The first person to guess the truth was Elly, though she had a significant clue in seeing Evelyn walk into the bathrooms and immediately throw up her breakfast less than an hour after she ate it.

                “Oh, my God,” Elly was freshly showered, her cardigan gone to reveal that her shirt was a fitted blue t-shirt with ‘Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!’ printed on it. Her hair was just as curly out of her braids as in. “Are you sick? Do you need anything?” She offered Evelyn a wet washcloth.

                “Thanks,” she said, wiping off her mouth and face and getting off her knees. Elly was still looking at her, eyes narrowed slightly in thought. “I’m fine, Elly.”

                “Holy shit,” Elly said quietly, eyes widening. “No you’re not, you’re _pregnant_.” She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t lie,” she added.

                “I’m handling it,” Evelyn said lowly, eyes flicking towards the door. Elly put her hands up, as if surrendering.

                “Fine, fine, I’m sure you are. But you don’t have to handle it alone, if you don’t want to. That’s all. We’re here.”

                Evelyn folded the washcloth in her hands and ducked her eyes down to the floor. It might be nice, to have some help. In the future, as everything got harder.

                “Thanks, Elly,” she said finally.

                “Right,” the girl said, parting her hair and starting to plait it into her two braids. “Who have you told?” She paused. “No one, I guess.” Evelyn didn’t say anything, but that was basically confirmation for Elly, who finished her braids and twisted ties around them. She left after giving Evelyn an uncertain smile. She was getting a lot of those lately, it seemed.

                Catching up on paperwork for Wray and getting a better idea of the state of Destiny took up a great deal of time: James had found a robot of some kind, which Brody seemed eager to look at, but nothing else exciting turned up. Brody and Park’s steady work on the shuttle and Rush and Elly’s work on the star and database continued. Rush was convinced that the planet, perhaps even the star as well, were artificial, and was itching to unravel the mystery, to the point that she was flatly refusing to rest as much as TJ had said. Eventually, though, Evelyn found herself outside the stones room, going over what she would say to General O’Neill.

                As expected, she had switched with Telford. Davina’s body felt slightly more responsive, lighter and faster than hers. She turned to the airman at the door, rolling her shoulders and bending her knees, trying to get used to the tension that Davina carried in her neck and jaw rather than across her shoulders and down her back.

                “I need to report to General O’Neill.”

                O’Neill was in the gate room, not his office, and Evelyn felt a pang at the sight of a wormhole closing behind a departing gate team as she was led down.

                “Colonel Young?” O’Neill asked, turning away from the sight.

                “I’d like to speak in your office, General,” she said. He nodded, and they retraced her steps.

                “How’s it going?” O’Neill settled into his chair, leaning back like a schoolboy rather than a general. His eyes were perfectly serious, though, and slightly worried.

                “Repairs to our second shuttle are proceeding, and we expect another week before we can resume radio communication with the planet. No attacks, nothing on our sensors.”

                “A long sunny vacation,” O’Neill said. “Those don’t always turn out as good as they sound.”

                “No sir,” Evelyn agreed. “Morale on Destiny could be better, but a lot of these folk had never been offworld before Icarus. It’s still overwhelming for them.”

                “You’re handling it,” he said. It wasn’t much of a question. Evelyn felt a sick, cold feeling in her stomach and drew in a deep breath. 

                “I have to report something else,” she said. “We’ve got a pregnant crew member.” O’Neill’s eyebrows were still traveling upwards when she finished, “Me.”

                “As jokes go, Evelyn, I’ve heard better. I’ve even told better.” She didn’t respond to O’Neill’s comment, because he was visibly unsettled and clearly trying to stay professional. She waited, didn’t drop eye contact. “Okay. You’re still handling it.”

                “Yes sir.” He straightened up in his chair.

                “I guess you should take a few hours to go see your husband,” he said finally.

                “It doesn’t concern him,” Evelyn said flatly. O’Neill tilted his head back, face unreadable.

                “Anyone it does concern, Colonel?”

                “No,” she replied, wondering if he had any suspicion, and wondering if he would act on it. Neither Scott nor TJ were experienced enough to lead the crew, and Wray had already proved he couldn’t.

                “Right,” he said, brushing his hands together. “Take care, Evelyn.” It was a dismissal, and she saluted, trying to ignore the flash of pain or jealousy that was flickering in O’Neill’s eyes.

                “Yes sir.”

                Whether or not Davina was done on Destiny, Evelyn didn’t care, and she disrupted the connection as soon as she re-entered the stones room, opening her eyes to find herself facing Wray. His face shifted slightly as she relaxed out of Telford’s rigid posture.

                “Colonel Young?”

                “I’ll talk to you in a minute, Camile,” she said, feeling the urge to scream or cry or hit something. She walked away, not turning back to look at Wray, down a blue- and orange-lit corridor, metal plating implacable under her boots, the churn of nausea that was turning into a person inescapable in her belly. She was crying again, this time a silent flow of tears that wouldn’t stop, blinding her as she continued on, right up to coming face to face with Rush, on her way somewhere. She stopped dead at the sight of Evelyn, and Evelyn turned away, not wanting to hide her face but wanting less to let anyone see her.

                “Colonel,” Rush said quietly, voice free of anger. Evelyn closed her eyes, feeling tears spill out beneath them nevertheless. This was not Daria Becker or Elly Wallace, good-hearted kids who gave her worried smiles, this was Nicola Rush, a manipulative woman who was frequently angry at her, no matter that they were no longer at odds about leading Destiny.

                “Doctor Rush,” she said, making her voice steady, but too quiet. “Do you need something?”

                “Park is in charge of hydroponics now, he might be able to recommend the most healthy things for you to eat. No one would begrudge you extra food, we’re not monsters.” Evelyn wiped her eyes once more, trying to make out Rush’s face. Her voice was neutral, as if she were discussing circuit repairs, but her wide eyes were intent, though whether kind or upset, Evelyn couldn’t tell. “I don’t think anyone else has guessed, but you’re losing weight in your face and yet you’re the only person onboard who doesn’t have dry skin and disgusting hair.” Rush shrugged, giving her a twisted smile. “Besides, when you grow up where I did, you learn what ‘oh-fuck-I’m-knocked-up’ looks like pretty quick.”

                “Thanks,” Evelyn said wryly, taking in a breath. “Elly found me throwing up and figured it out.”

                “She’s sharp,” Rush said approvingly. “Does Lieutenant Johansen know?”

                “What?” Evelyn snarled. Rush gave her an unimpressed look.

                “He looks at you like you’re blinding him, if he dares to look at all. It’s fucking obvious.”

                “I’m glad everything is so clear to you, Rush,” she managed to say, looking at the wall. Her crying seemed to have stopped as suddenly as it started. “It must be nice.”

                Rush’s hand touched over her arm briefly, a very faint squeeze that was nonetheless comforting.

                “Sergeant Riley seems to have a lot of knowledge about children,” she said, and then continued on her way up the hall, the ghost of her hand still around Evelyn’s arm, the first human touch anyone had offered her in a long while.

                Elly’s words about people being willing to help seemed more believable, now, after that exchange.

~

                Their radio communications with the planet would resume, according to Rush, a day before they’d be able to make shuttle trips.

                “The obelisk transmits some kind of radiation, without pattern as far as Volker can tell,” Scott’s earnest voice came through without much static. “She wants to study it more.”

                “Well, we won’t have time for that, Lieutenant. What’s the food and water supply like?”

                “Excellent, ma’am. We’ve got fresh produce, a lot of dried fruit, a whole lot of sweet potato-like things—everyone down here is doing really well, too. TJ’s got a whole stash of medicinals, and we’ve got flats of seedlings for Doctor Park.” Evelyn closed her eyes briefly, immensely relieved.

                “Great work, Lieutenant. Pack up the shuttle so you’ll be ready to make trip one as soon as we’re in range.”

                “Already done. Scott out.” Elly, Wray, and James were all on the observation deck with her, looking extremely pleased at the news.

                “I would basically kill a man for a salad, I have to admit, and I never thought I would say that,” James said, then paused. “I mean, not literally, of course.”

                “Did you miss the part about potatoes? Hello, French fries?” Elly said.

                “She said sweet potatoes.”

                “You can make fries from those.”

                “Guys, why don’t you head to the shuttle bay and get ready to unload, we want to make as many trips as possible.” The two of them ducked off, sniping about the definition of a French fry as they went.

                Scott was alone in the shuttle, with an impressive amount of carefully packed food in the back, as well as two wooden flats of seedlings, marked with TJ, Caine, and Cole’s handwriting. Volunteers to unload the stores were plentiful, so Evelyn let them have at it under Becker’s direction, Rush and Wray crowding close to listen to Scott’s report.

                “Ma’am, there’s something of a situation,” Scott said uneasily. Her short-cropped hair was growing past her ears. “The planet, it’s really nice, and a lot of people are talking about how they want to stay.”

                “Stay on the planet?”

                “They feel healthier there, I guess,” Scott looked uncomfortable. “If they want to stay, I want to stay with them, they need to be safe. Some of them think the planet was made for us.”

                “No one’s staying, that’s absurd,” Rush bit out, in the midst of looking over the shuttle controls. “Volker’s notes say that they expect below-freezing temperatures, and they have no infrastructure. No hope.”

                “We can’t force people to come with us,” Wray cut in. “They have a right to choose.”

                “What about the right to critically endanger the rest of us? Losing personnel is bound to happen anyway, we can’t let a tenth of them just _go._ ” Rush pointed a finger at Wray, angling her body towards him like a blade. “No matter how much you like to talk about free will, this is a matter of our survival. People don’t get a choice.”

                “They want to meet the aliens to learn about why the planet is there at all,” Scott said, sounding half-convinced herself.

                “I’d like to know too,” Rush said, voice disdainful. She gave Scott a narrow-eyed look. “And yet I’m not suggesting we stay.”

                “Neither am I,” Scott replied, adjusting her cap. Evelyn cut them all off.

                “Who wants to stay?”

                “Caine, most of the civilians besides Volker and Morrison. Cole wants to,” she tried to make herself sound indifferent about that, but Evelyn wasn’t blind. “TJ likes it there.”

                “No military personnel can stay,” Evelyn snapped, feeling unconscionably betrayed by that simple little sentence. TJ had no reason to want to stay, and they had eighty people onboard who needed a doctor. “They can have the repaired shuttle for shelter, if they still want to stay when I tell them they can’t keep you there.”

                “Yes ma’am,” Scott said. “I can fly it down.” Evelyn pointed at the functional shuttle.

                “You can fly this one down, Lieutenant. Give them the news and then radio if they still want to stay and I’ll fly the other down.” Rush looked furious and Wray only slightly mollified at this development.

                Caine and four others dug their heels in, and Brody and Park gave her a rundown of everything slightly iffy about the shuttle.

                “The pressure is fine on Destiny, but it’s not going to hold up to more than one trip through planetary atmosphere,” Brody said, face serious, wide eyes smudged underneath with dark circles. “I’d feel better if you had a pilot’s mask.”

                “But the steering is all functional now,” Park said quickly.

                “Yeah, but propulsion could be much better.”

                “Am I going to make it to the planet in one piece?” Young asked. They both nodded. “Okay, thank you.” She flicked on the radio. “Scott, are they certain they want to stay?”

                It was Caine’s voice that came back.

                “We’re sure, Colonel. Thank you.”

                The shuttle controls weren’t as smooth as an F-302 or puddlejumper, but she had piloted a worse cargo ship at least once. The Ancients built to last, even for a million years.

                The planet looked just like Earth as she came closer, filling up the forward view in a burst of golden light poured over white clouds and blue ocean. Evelyn made her angle of entry as shallow as possible, opening up the throttle and entering the atmosphere with a wrenching shudder of the shuttle and a spray of red-gold from the forward bow, gusting up like fireflies. Hopefully she wouldn’t burn up in the upper atmosphere, and starting descending and decelerating as quickly as she could without snapping the shuttle into pieces. Landing in the wide field near the lean-tos the team had been camping in was a simple matter, though the propulsion had been significantly weakened upon entry.

                The planet was beautiful: like a late summer morning in the western foothills of the Rockies. Evelyn couldn’t help but turn in a slow circle to take it in as she exited the shuttle. The greenery and un-replicable blue of the sky almost hurt her eyes, and the air tasted like living things, like water and soil.

                “Pretty impressive, right?” Greer had jogged over from the other side of the clearing and was watching her. Evelyn gave her a smile, glad to see that she seemed perfectly fine.

                “Have a good time, Master Sergeant?”

                “Yes ma’am, and _very_ productive.” Greer glanced across at the little camp, where drying racks were being emptied, and Dunning and Cole were taking what looked like seaweed or squash out of a little smoking house. Evelyn looked at her watch.

                “We have to leave in the second shuttle in an hour,” she said. “What’s the situation?”

                Greer didn’t have to respond, though, because Dr. Caine was approaching, her open face tan and delighted. Evelyn didn’t smile.

                “I’m doing this against my better judgment,” she said. Dr. Caine just nodded.

                “We’ll be fine, Colonel. I know that the aliens who built this place are coming for us. We’ll get back to Earth.” Evelyn studied her convicted eyes.

                “I hope your faith pays off, Doctor.”

                “Good luck to Destiny, as well.” Caine shook her hand, eyes drifting to the shuttle.

                “It might be good for following warmer temperatures across the planet. It can’t clear the atmosphere anymore.” Evelyn stuck her hands in her pockets. “It will at least give you some shelter and storage.”

                “Thank you for this,” Caine said warmly, and headed to look at it. Cole Armstrong was standing close to the returning shuttle, arms folded across his chest, eyes troubled. The returning crew members were tan and perhaps less skinny than they had been before, and all of them seemed healthy. TJ’s hair was longer than usual, brushing down around his ears, and burnished a bright gold from the sun. Evelyn felt something tighten in her chest at the sight of him, looked away, and gestured them all aboard, except for Greer and Dunning, who were passing out what looked like sacks of lettuce and berries for people to hold in their laps.

                “All aboard?” Scott asked, twisting in her seat, and Young settled into the copilot’s seat.

                “I think so, yes,” Cole’s voice sounded nonchalant, as he stretched his legs out and accepted a bag of greens. Scott gave him a grin nonetheless.

~

                Becker was directing the unloading of foodstuffs, and TJ had disappeared to the hydroponics room in order to plant his medicinal seedlings and help with the others. Evelyn found Wray, who was enjoying, along with everyone else, a handful of what looked very much like orange cherry tomatoes. Greer stopped in front of them, eyeing Wray but saying nothing, and poured several into Evelyn’s hand.

                “Becker says she’s making a feast, so we’re having appetizers.” She didn’t eat any herself, but then, she’d had a surplus for a month.

                “I need a report on everyone we just lost, and your spin on it for Homeworld Command,” she said. “By the end of the day.” Wray nodded.

                “Enjoy the produce, Colonel, I certainly am,” he said, and moved away.

                The little berries had surprisingly tough skins, but burst in her mouth with a sunny, citrusy taste that was acidic and so strong it almost hurt her mouth. She ate them slowly, trying to savor the feeling of pulp and slimy seeds on her tongue.

                She was in her quarters, making up her next report for Homeworld Command, when there was a knock.

                “Come in,” she called, taking off her reading glasses. It was Scott, the slight frown on her face that never left deeper than usual.

                “Colonel,” she said, fiddling with her hands. “How do we know that we weren’t supposed to stay there? How can we know if we just threw away a lifeline?” Evelyn stood up and walked over to her.

                “I can’t know for sure, Lieutenant. No one can.”

                “That’s not very reassuring,” she replied.

                “Nope,” Evelyn said, and nudged her arm. “Come on, let’s go see what Becker’s got cooked up for tonight.”

                It was, as promised, a feast, with baked strips of tubers that tasted a lot like potato, seasoned greens of multiple types, and chunks of fresh fruit. The mess had never been louder, and Brody broke out some of the results of her distillation experiments, filling cups with what must be an approximation of vodka.

                The returned crew members were surrounded by those who had stayed behind, being alternately pestered for and told stories. Evelyn left the mess, noticing that Rush was already gone. She knocked on the door of the other woman’s quarters, and entered at Rush’s response.

                “Hey,” she said. Rush was sitting with her shoes off, a military-issue knife in her hand. She had a few pieces of wood scattered on the table in front of her.

                “Colonel,” she replied, shaving a curl of wood away from a chunk in her hand. “What do you need?”

                “I’m sorry that Volker’s data wasn’t enough to figure out the mystery of the planet. Find the aliens who might have done this.” Rush shrugged, chipping out another bit of wood. The piece in her hand was resolving into a knight. “Chess?” she asked, to be sure.

                “Actually, colonel, I have something for you.” She stood up, picking up a small nylon bag from her table, and walked over in her socks. Evelyn glanced inside the bag to see it filled with the little orange berries, and a few pieces of the dried fruit. “I don’t like them,” Rush said. “And talk to Becker, will you?”

                “Hey,” Evelyn said, catching her wrist. “Thank you.”

                “Fucking talk to Becker,” she repeated.

                “Yeah,” Evelyn relented.

                She ate the extra food from Rush in her quarters, reflecting that it was absurd for Rush to be giving her her fruit ration just because she was trying not to be a burden on the crew. She put her hand cautiously over her abdomen, wondering when she would feel the baby inside start to move. She had to take care of it, too, this little thing that weighed so heavily and yet, she realized, would mean she was never again going to be alone the way she was now.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Vienna Teng's "Augustine," the full line is "Faith is both a prison and an open hand," which felt appropriate, and I might as well stick to this titling convention while I can.


End file.
